Madison
🏙️ Madison, 1985 – The City on the Edge of Consensus
“77 square miles surrounded by reality—and none of it safe anymore.”
Madison, Wisconsin—also known by its ancestral name Teejop, “the land of the four lakes”—sits atop one of the most unstable and spiritually powerful Nodes in North America. The city’s seemingly peaceful streets conceal generational occult wars, eroding spiritual pacts, and a fracturing consensus that threatens to unleash the Nameless, a force of erasure older than history.
🌐 CORE STATUS AS OF FEBRUARY 1985
| Realm | Status |
|---|---|
| Capitol Node | Severely destabilized. Corrupted by Nephandi glyphs. Shadow Zones bloom. |
| New Avalon | Collapsing Horizon Realm. Ritual anchors fractured. Mirror of Shadows active. |
| New Eden | Digital warzone. Digi-8, Abel Washington, and Nephandi fight for control. |
| Tradition Council | Fractured. Jay Dee, Lacy Z., and the Chorus in conflict over the future. |
| Werewolves | Leaderless after Burke's murder. Arboretum Caern holds, barely. |
| Kindred | Prince Tori Redford assassinated. Coup and civil war likely. |
| Changelings | Retreating. The Dreaming is corrupted. Olbrich Freehold destabilizing. |
| Wraiths | Stirring. Veil thinned at Camp Randall and Capitol basement vaults. |
| Mortals | Surging crime, missing persons, dream madness. Police overwhelmed. |
Madtown World of Darkne…
🧱 FOUNDATION OF MYSTICAL MADISON
📍 The Capitol Node
Discovered by Jay Dee (Order of Hermes) in 1634, the Node is the Third Anchor in the prison built to contain the Nameless. Its pulse shapes all other realms tied to Madison: New Avalon, the Horizon city, and New Eden, the emergent digital construct.
The city layout—street grids, architecture, and sacred sites—was intentionally designed by mages like Jay Dee and Frank Lloyd Wright to mirror Hermetic glyphs and create a ritual field of protective resonance.
🪶 INDIGENOUS FOUNDATION – TEEJOP
The land of Madison has been sacred for thousands of years. The Ho-Chunk Nation (People of the Sacred Voice) built effigy mounds, crafted memory-lines into the land, and maintained spiritual harmony with entities both ancient and alien.
Effigy mounds—some still visible—form a living geomantic map tied to elemental balance and Dreaming resonance. These natural wardings are fading in 1985.
🔪 THE CAPITOL MURDERS (February 9, 1985)
This is the event that initiates Nameless Echoes:
- Prince Tori Redford (Anarch Gangrel) found ritually murdered in her haven.
- William Burke (Silver Fang Elder) slain near the Capitol Node, his flesh carved with Nephandi runes.
- 12 mortals found dead inside the Capitol Building—arranged in a pattern that aligns with the leyline grid.
These deaths were orchestrated to break the Gahara Pact, shatter trust, and accelerate entropy toward a full breach
⚖️ SUPERNATURAL FACTIONS
🧙♂️ Mages (Traditions & Disparates)
The Mage Council of Madison is fracturing under pressure. Key players:
- Jay Dee (Order of Hermes) – Architect of New Avalon, emotionally and spiritually unraveling.
- Lea Nosson Goodwin (Celestial Chorus) – Anchor of spiritual stability, now doubting her own identity.
- Lacy Z. Rivere (Hollow One) – Leader of the Disparate Alliance; hiding a Kindred addiction and secret pacts.
- Evan Adams (Sons of Ether) – Building Reploids powered by unstable Node energy.
- Ann Johnston (Akashic Brotherhood) – Umbra-walker training defenders.
- Glory of the Morning (Dreamspeaker) – Bound to fading treaties with Garou spirits.
- Aadhira Hebbar (Euthanatos) – Returned from death; Avatar of Shiva; demands the Council act now.
- Abel Washington (Virtual Adept) - Admin of New Eden in the Digital Web.
🧛 Kindred
- Prince Tori Redford’s death has left the Anarch Free State collapsing.
- Victor King (Ventrue) and Michael Kruger (Tremere) prepare a coup, supported by Pentex and the Technocracy.
- Lulu Turner (Lasombra) is forging strange alliances with Hollow Ones and Fae.
- Brandy Madison (Malkavian) manipulates both mortals and media through paradox-layered broadcasts.
🐺 Garou
- With Burke’s death, the Garou have no clear alpha.
- The Peace Park Caern and Arboretum Node are under siege by spiritual corruption.
- Bone Gnawers warn of growing Shadow Zones beneath the isthmus, but no one listens.
🧚 Fae
- The Dreaming is breaking.
- Olbrich Botanical Gardens, once a Freehold-Caern hybrid, is failing.
- The Mirror of Shadows (linked to New Avalon) affects even changeling dreams.
- Many Fae have vanished or gone silent. Those who remain speak of an oncoming silence—the Nameless.
☠️ Wraiths
- Camp Randall, once a Union training ground, is now a spectral echo zone.
- The Unnamed March, a legion of Confederate Wraiths, stirs beneath the soil.
- Wraiths allied to the city have begun to vanish, drawn toward the Capitol by a force they fear but cannot resist.
👥 Mortals
- Crime surges.
- Media outlets receive corrupted tapes, impossible photographs, and conflicting timelines.
- Madison police quietly cover up supernatural killings with help from Technocratic sleeper agents.
- Angela Yates, an Isthmus reporter, is getting too close to the truth.
- Rick Samuels, a TV anchor, has started dreaming of being replaced by a version of himself that smiles too wide.
📍 KEY LOCATIONS
- The Capitol Building – Site of the original Seal. Now echoing with glyphs no one remembers writing.
- Camp Randall – Ghost-storm epicenter. Bound with blood and war.
- Bascom Hill – Mind distortion and thought-drift affect even seasoned Mages.
- Peace Park – Spiritual tension. Last place Burke was seen alive.
- Mother Fool’s Café – Neutral Chantry run by Peggy Fitzgerald (Cult of Ecstasy).
- Olbrich Gardens – Fading Fae stronghold. Ritual site for dream reinforcement.
- New Avalon (tethered) – Horizon Realm dying in parallel.
- New Eden (tethered) – Digital construct under siege by Nephandi code.
🛑 Summary: What Makes Madison in 1985 Unique?
- The Third Anchor is failing.
- Time itself may be folding—players may experience memories of things that haven’t happened yet.
- Every supernatural faction is compromised, cornered, or at war.
- The Nameless is whispering, louder now, through reflections, static, graffiti, and dreams.
- Consensus is fracturing, and with it, the rules of magick, reality, and selfhood.
Madison is no longer a city.
It’s a metaphysical battleground, a paradox crucible, and a dream preparing to wake up as something else.